Originally posted on: Apr 25, 2013 @ 8:49
This touches all the bases.
Fr. Kevin Cusick is running in the Marine Corps Marathon to raise money for the Archdiocese for the Military Services.
You can make a pledge to help Father hit his goal and, in turn, help the chaplains. Click HERE.
A good project. He is at $180 of his goal of $500. Let see if we can’t boost him over his goal and beyond.
If I am not mistaken, Fr. Cusick now writes a weekly column at my old stomping ground, The Wanderer. A sound guy with his head screwed on the right way. His approach to liturgical issues would be in harmony with my own.
I have a link on the side bar to the donation page for the Archdiocese for the Military Services.
UPDATE 25 April 14:03 EDT:
Well! I turn my back for a couple hours and the total is now at $1050!
Keep going!
UPDATE 7 May 19:36 EDT:
Good work everyone! The total is $2515.
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Done, Fr.
Donation made in Memory of Fr. Kapaun. Seems appropriate.
Donation made. The heck with meeting his goal – let’s double it!
Will be donating as soon as I get home. As my grandmother’s maiden name was Cusick, I will do all that I can to help this cousin from the Emerald Isle. Hooah, Lt Commander Cusick. Drive on!
A military chaplain writing for the Wanderer?
Forgive my skepticism, but I am a 20-year US Army veteran writing from Afghanistan.
The quality of Catholic life is the military can be infuriatingly antagonistic to Catholic faith. In a culture where tradition and ceremony are looked upon with the highest esteem, most Catholic military chaplains feed the flock only the most un-traditional novus ordo liturgies fully bent to accommodate the (perceived) lowest common denominator. The military lives and breathes a radical pluralism that in professional chaplaincy drives a decidedly ecumaniacal bent.
It is nearly impossible for a Catholic family attached to tradition to find welcome in military settings. I say this as an “insider” who has served in every way (EVERY WAY) a layman can in the AMS including two tours in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pope Benedict’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum was dismissed by the AMS bishops as inapplicable because of the “stable community” clause.
I wish Fr. Cusick every success and would love to read anything he has written for the Wanderer.
Fr. (Ch) Cusick, if I’m correct, retired out of the Army and became a chaplain in the Navy Reserve. He formally enrolled my wife and I in the Confraternity of the Brown Scapular following Extraordinary Form Mass on Wednesday of Holy Week this year. At his parish in Maryland, he has an EF Mass every Saturday morning and Sunday when he’s not activated for reservist duties. These Masses are with the church’s high altar — he moves “the table” (as he calls it) out of the way most of the time, using it only for I think the Sunday OF Mass. Every or nearly every Mass he says is ad orientem. I’ve seen a picture of him saying Mass ad orientem (and probably in Latin, which he seems to have become completely fluent in, and probably EF as well) with our troops in the open desert.
Catholic Johnny, I know where you’re coming from. I saw our chaplain in Baghdad play guitar during Mass (God bless him). Fr Cusick is definitely one of the good guys. Plus, he tells me there are more chaplains out there like him (even if they might not publicly admit it).
I’ll be donating. God bless Fr. Kevin Cusick!
Good of you to call our attention to the good Father.
I think I might know Padre Cusick from my days in the Corps.
Bombermac, I hope you are right. Its desolate out here (the AMS, not Afghanistan), and even worse for the wife and kids.
Thank you for the information, Father Z.
Catholic Johnny, by and large I would agree with you. There are many good priests and parishioners in the AMS, and my wife and I have grown much in our faith through the friendships we’ve made and the experiences we’ve had with these decent and holy people. However, we’ve gotten to a point where we feel like we’re getting much more from more traditional communities than those which are normally found on military installations. At my current location, we’ve been blessed to find a church that offers a Mass in the EF every Saturday night. Even if it didn’t exist, though, I’m not sure if I’d choose the nearby base chapel over a community parish. It’s a sad state of affairs, isn’t it? I’m sure you and I could trade some stories (and beers would be mandatory given the tragic nature of our tales :)
On the other hand, if we have priests like Fr Cusick shepherding the faithful, I can see good things in store for the AMS. I’ve met solid, dedicated Catholics who love their faith, but who still have a lot to learn about tradition or orthodoxy. In fact, I think I’ve been coming from that camp myself over the last 4 or 5 years (and really, it still describes me). If a good priest would lead them eastward, and if they had a group of like-minded laity nearby for mutual support, growth, and friendship, I think the makeup of the AMS would start to change quite dramatically.
How much longer are you out there? I’d like to start remembering you in our prayers while you’re deployed.
I knew Fr. Cusick when we lived in Virginia Beach, he is definitely one of the good ones. We even enjoyed his company for dinner at our home. In our diocese, we gravitated towards the military priests (even the non-military among us) as they were typically more traditional.
Glad to hear news of him and will certainly contribute to this cause.
Bombermac,
I may not be in Afghanistan much longer based on force reduction goals. We got here (Kandahar) last August.
What’s funny about Catholic chaplains is this: we have four in RC(S) and they are a married convert from Lutheranism; two priests from Nigeria, and a Filipino. In other words, THE [American] VOCATIONS WELL IS DRY.
I am simply unwilling (although what choice do I have?) to continue to entertain the liturgical abuses of the Novus Ordo, its depressing ecumenism, the Eucharistic prayers that do not mention the Divine Victim, the callous and irreverent way people receive communion, the ugly music, the priest facing the people and endlessly chattering with them like a talk show host.
When back home at Fort Stewart, we take our family to the Cathedral in Savannah to assist at the Tridentine Mass (I hate the name “extraordinary form”) driving an hour each way. I am personally close to many Army chaplains, including many priests, but I just can’t do it any more. I have done everything a layman can do in the NO mass, and in the conciliar church. I am at a point where I feel it a sacred duty to help conserve our liturgical and theological patrimony because the Modernists who far outnumber us, are working night and day to make the faithful believe that tradition is evil, and that the forces of a fictional evolution have rendered all tradition something that belonged to its own epoch.
Now let’s go get those beers!
Catholic Johnny,
Sounds like you’ve been out there plenty long enough to me! I pray that you continue to do good work out there and get home safely to family and friends.
Getting those beers might not be out of reach. When I’m not TDY/deployed, I call Bonaire, GA home (And although I’ve never been to Ft. Stewart, when I was in Iraq several years ago I worked alongside the Soldiers of 1-3 ID and the Airmen of 15 ASOS). I’ve not been to the cathedral in Savannah, but I’ve heard and read great things about it. I’ve been meaning to take the family on a long weekend excursion to Savannah, and I’ve really been wanting to attend their Sunday TLM. Maybe we could try to mesh our schedules sometime come Fall/Winter/Spring?
By the way, if you ever happen to be in the Warner Robins or Macon area, I think you’d like St. Joseph Catholic Church. They do a TLM every Tuesday evening and on the first Sunday of the month (generally), and their 12:10pm Sunday Mass is a NO Mass done ad orientem. Every single Mass makes kneelers available when receiving Holy Communion. The pastor (whom Fr. Z has highlighted in the past) and parochial vicar are both wonderful.
Bombermac,
My email is abnjumpmaster56m@yahoo.com.
Thanks for the generous invitation.
:-)
bombermac, Catholic Johnny,
It was the striking Cathedral in Savannah, Christmas Day 2011 that I first witnessed the TLM. After the grossly irreverant NO the night before the TLM all but put me into shock! Having entered the Church in 2007 at a rather liberal NO parish, I had no idea something so profound and beautiful existed. Having been raised Baptist, Lutheran and Methodist, I found the NO not much different than anything I had seen elsewhere (except the Baptist music was better and the Lutherans knew to kneel for communion).
The military base here state-side (Redstone Arsenal, AL) has NO only, but there is a full-TLM parish in town now and several military members. Having seen what passes for Mass on most bases, I’ve had trouble donating the the diocese, but I think I can if only for Fr. Cusick.